I’m Chinese, and the thing is in Asia a “sword” (jian, ken, 劍) is what we usually refer to straight double-edged weapon. While a single-edged weapon is usually referred to as a “blade” (dāo, katana, 刀) hence “Bokuto/木刀”.

So technically it’s wrong to dub a katana as a “samurai sword” but westerner don’t have that kind of distinction; as long as it can cut/stab it’s a sword. 😛